Holding onto Hope
by OkayDokey33
Summary: After Plasmus splits himself apart to escape capture from the Teen Titans, Jinx is placed under Starfire's leadership along with Jericho as a team building exercise. It seems to go well, until Starfire decides to try and convert Plasmus to the side of good, causing trouble for the team. Why did she do it? One-shot.


"Hey!" Jinx angrily cried as she stormed towards the violet-clad, red headed, Tamaranean. "Do you mind explaining to me what you were thinking just now?!" She then crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently as she awaited the answer that she felt had already been long overdue.

Plasmus had once again managed to escape from his containment tube, but the moment Robin and his team found and confronted him, Plasmus split himself into five entities and fled the first chance they got. Seeing this as the perfect opportunity to train the original Titans' leadership skills as well as add a bit more team experience under the honorary Titans' belts, Robin had decided to split the team up and assign them all different teams to lead in their search for Plasmus' five entities, and low and behold, he decided to separate Jinx from Kid Flash in order to help better integrate her into the Titans as a whole. To his credit, he had placed her under Starfire's leadership along with Jericho, the former having been the most accepting of her joining their ranks, the latter being one of the most kind, so while one of them was mute and the other one was a bit too friendly for her taste, teaming up with anyone else would've probably been either too awkward or too combustible, so she wasn't exactly going to complain... at first. Sadly after being unusually lucky with finding one of the entities, with the creative use of Jinx and Starfire's powers and Jericho's body possession, which he used to confirm that the entity that they had captured was indeed the one with Plasmus' main consciousness in it, they had almost successfully managed to defeat him... only for Starfire to suddenly request that Jinx stand down and Jericho do nothing so that she could try to talk to the messy monster, or rather, the human inside said monster. Quite predictably, despite Jinx's ignored protests against it, Plasmus' monstrous mind was too much for Jericho to contain, forcing him to vacate Plasmus' body, shocking the two female Titans enough for Plasmus to recover from the side effects of Jericho's possession, attack the trio, and make his escape. So far, it was safe for Jinx to say that, villain or hero, she just couldn't escape having such terrible bad luck.

Starfire averted her eyes away from Jinx's piercing and admittedly well-earned glare and wrapped herself in her own arms before softly answering, "My apologies. I did not think that the Plasmus would be so dismissive of my pleading for him to end his life of villainy in favor of joining us."

"Of course Plasmus wouldn't care about your stupid invitation to join the team!" Jinx cried. "He's literally a walking pile of disgusting, contaminated, living goop! He has no good side to appeal to!"

"That may be," Starfire conceded passionately, "but perhaps the human who resides within -"

"Can't do squat!" Jinx loudly interjected. She then noticed Jericho miming for her to calm down. She scowled at the mute honorary Titan. "No, I will NOT calm down!" When this caused him to look down and his shoulders to droop down dejectedly, she immediately felt a bit guilty, looked up, and let out a loud and exasperated groan before placing her hands on her hips and turning her attention back to the shamefaced extraterrestrial. "Plasmus' human side is sick! That's why they put him in a gigantic tube in the first place! To keep him in stasis until they can find a cure for his condition! Him being good or evil literally has nothing to do with this!" She crossed her arms as she let out another exasperated and weary sigh. "And now, thanks to you, we've lost him! And if Big Eyes over here could take him over for a bit," she said, pointing at Jericho as she did, "then that means that we had the only part of Plasmus that really mattered on the ropes! And if that's true, then it's because of you," Jinx then pointed an accusing finger at Starfire, "that we couldn't finish the job and get to go home earlier tonight!"

Jinx took a moment to catch her breath after the admittedly long rant she had just performed before letting out a dispirited groan, indicating around the trio of heroes, and stating, "And now we have to look for it all over again, and it's going to take forever, and -" Just then she felt someone tap her lightly on her shoulder. Jinx turned around to find that the tapping had come from a reassuringly smiling Jericho. Jinx sighed before giving him an annoyed scowl and crossing her arms. "What now?" she asked.

Jericho placed his index finger against his lips, signaling for Jinx to be quiet for a moment before closing his eyes, holding out his hands, and turning himself around slowly. Jinx frowned irritably at the enigmatic guitar player before looking back at Starfire and giving her a questionable look as she pointed at the still wandering Jericho.

When all the Tamaranean did was return her look of confusion with one of her own, Jinx grumbled in frustration before turning her attention back to Jericho and find that Jericho had finished whatever he was doing, with his eyes opened and pointing towards something. Both Jinx and Starfire's eyes followed where Jericho was pointing towards and neither of them saw anything of note, Starfire gracefully flew towards her fellow Titan and asked, "Friend, what is it that you wished to show us?" Jericho then pointed again towards where he was pointing and walked in that general direction before gesturing for Starfire and Jinx to follow him. Starfire gasped. "I now understand!" She then turned back to the confused Jinx and explained, "Upon bonding with the smaller Plasmus, our friend, Jericho, can now sense where the smaller Plasmus is!"

Jinx's eyes widened in surprise upon realizing what this meant. "Wait," she ran up to Jericho and jabbed her index finger roughly against his chest. "Is that true?" Jericho nodded, resulting in Jinx to give him a disapproving scowl. "Then why didn't you tell us sooner?!" Before either of her teammates could answer her, however, Jinx raised her hand, silencing the two, and dryly said, "On second thought, don't answer that. Just take us to him."

Jericho nodded dutifully. As he slowly led the two female Titans towards Plasmus, with both of them hoping that Plasmus wasn't planning on leaving his hiding spot or running even further away from them as they did, the two female Titans stayed silent throughout the entire journey. When they finally did manage to find the entity of Plasmus again, they were able to defeat it and revert Plasmus to his human form in no time and, only after confirming that the other entities had disappeared as well and giving Plasmus' human form the proper care he needed until the authorities placed him into a new containment tube and took him away, did Starfire attempt to engage in a conversation with the unlucky sorceress.

"Jinx?"

Jinx glanced at the kindhearted alien for a moment. "What?"

Starfire averted her eyes as she held herself with her own arms. "I... I wish to apologize for -"

Jinx raised a hand to silence her. "I'm going to stop you right there," she said. Much to Starfire's surprise, it was now Jinx's turn to avert her gaze and cradle herself in her own arms. Jinx lightly blushed as she let out a sigh. "Look," she began, "I know that I can be... difficult to work with sometimes, and I know that I really let my temper get the best of me today, so I just want to say that I'm... sorry. I promise to start working on holding my temper better from here on out, okay?" For a long time, no one said or did anything, to the point where Jinx eventually hung her head and added, "I... I know that it's hard for somebody like you to trust someone like me with a promise like that, but -"

Just then, much to both Jinx and Jericho's surprise, Starfire squealed before suddenly flying up into the air, performing great, big somersault, and joyfully crying out, "Glorious!" before flying down and enveloping Jinx in a great, big, unintentionally bone-crushing hug.

"Hurgh!"

Starfire giggled as she continued her cuddle. "Longing to better one's self for others is one of the truest signs that one wishes to becomes friends with them!" She let go of Jinx and looked at her excitedly. "Does that mean that you think of us as true friends?"

Jinx quickly nodded as she continued to gasp desperately for air. "Yes! Yes, I do!" She the raised her hand up to stop any possible further hugs from the powerful alien. "Just promise me... never to do that again, alright?"

Realizing that her strength had once again unintentionally hurt one of her friends, Starfire let out an apologetic and embarrassed giggle as she blushed, nodded her head, and gave Jinx a small smile in response.

As the three purple-clad Titans slowly made their way home on foot, Starfire held the side of her arm and hung her head before quietly saying, "Jinx?"

Jinx glanced at Starfire's troubled state for a second before letting out a sigh and asking, "What is it now?"

"I wish to... apologize for my earlier behavior," Starfire answered. "As a Titan, I cannot afford to allow my personal feelings to dictate how I am in battle. I did not follow that particular rule very well today."

"I thought that we were past this already."

"Forgive me. It simply did not feel right to wrong a friend and not properly apologize for it."

Jinx was silent for a moment before softly saying, "Yeah, well... apology accepted." Starfire gave Jinx a tender smile of gratitude. "You do bring up a good point though," Jinx said as the three continued on their way back to Titans' Tower. She glanced back at Starfire from the corners of her eyes. "What DID make you want to talk to Plasmus so badly today? You of all people should've known about his condition. Why the sudden change of heart on the guy?"

Starfire was silent for a moment before she answered, "My heart changed because I was inspired by the changing of your heart, Jinx."

Jinx's eyes widened as she stopped walking and gave Starfire an incredulous look. "What?" Realizing that his two female teammates had stopped walking, Jericho followed suit and watched from afar. "Why?"

Starfire hung her head, slightly embarrassed over the answer she was about to give her. "When you decided to abandon your life of villainy and become our ally, I was overjoyed. Not only because you abandoned your previous life as a villain, but because you used to be someone who seemed to revel in the pain and misery of others. I thought that if someone like you could see the error of their ways and change... then maybe others like you, such as Plasmus and my sister, Blackfire, could change as well." Starfire then dejectedly shook her head. "Perhaps this belief was unfounded after all."

Jinx stared at Starfire in stunned silence for a moment before averting her eyes to the side and replying, "Like I said, Plasmus doesn't fit into any of those two categories. And as for your sister..."

Jinx took a moment to seriously consider what she going to say next. Blackfire's reputation was surprisingly well known and respected in the villain community, despite the fact that most of her most vile deeds took place off-world. Blackfire was hardcore in a way that even Jinx in her villain days would never consider looking up to. Stabbing your sister, and by extension, your entire planet, in the back just to suit your own needs? Sure, Jinx had been little more than a petter crook along with the rest of the Hive Five, but that was all she sort of aspired to being. Just someone who could get herself a decent, preferably well paid, living. If there was at least one thing that she had learned from Brother Blood and that school of his, it was that villains should never overestimate their limitations; otherwise the hero would take advantage of that obvious weakness and put said villain in jail as a result. She couldn't figure out what anyone would do with the authority of a royal, much less do it well. Either Blackfire was the genius she claimed herself to be or she was dangerously self-destructive and delusional, two things Jinx knew she could never be and never wanted to be respectively. Then there was the whole betraying your own sister thing. As much as the other members of her old team had frustrated her to no end, she would never have double-crossed them just to get ahead, or at least, she hoped not. As incompetent as they could be, they had still been the only friends she ever had before turning good, and in a way, she did feel bad about switching sides on them like she did, but if she was going to stop being a villain, she was going to have to remove herself from all possible bad influences. If they ever decided to turn a new leaf, she'd welcome them to their side with open arms, so it jarred her that Blackfire was willing to do so many cruel things to her own little sister just to get what she wanted. In all honesty, Jinx didn't see much hope for someone as delusional and selfish as Blackfire, but Starfire still held a little bit of hope for her, so maybe she should lie? Reassure her that there was hope yet for her older sister despite all evidence to the contrary? Jinx shook her head, no, she was never the type of person to sugarcoat things, and she wasn't going to start now. That being said however, she didn't want to rob any potential villains-turned-good of an optimistic, open-minded, and overly friendly Starfire, so she was going to have to find some sort of middle ground.

Jinx took a deep breath, before looking Starfire directly in the eye, and answering, "Honestly, Starfire, I'm sorry, but your sister... I don't think there's much hope for someone like her."

Starfire dejectedly lowered her gaze. "I see."

"... But..."

Starfire's eyes widened in surprise as she lifted her head. "Huh?"

Jinx turned her eyes away from Starfire's. "But then again, I bet that that's what a lot of people said about me too, so... what do I know?" She turned back to Starfire, an uncomfortable blush spreading across her face. "That hope that you have for your sister, as long as you truly believe in it, never let it go, no matter what anybody else says otherwise." Jinx's face only got pinker and pinker with every word that came out of her mouth. She couldn't believe how incredibly sappy she was sounding right now. "Because when that someone DOES take that chance, to be someone better, then they'll really appreciate it. Trust me, I should know."

Starfire stared at the pink haired Titan in awe for a moment before letting out an ear-piercing squeal and quickly wrapping Jinx in another bone-crushing hug. "Oh, Jinx, this means that we REALLY can be friends after all!" She giggled as she continued to cuddle the former villain. "Now we can have the sleepovers, and the sharing of the pizzas, and the talks about boys, and-"

Jinx grumbled as Starfire continued listing all of the girly and social things they could do with each other, but left it at that. They may have agreed to no more hugs, but she was willing to make an exception... this time. "I really hope this doesn't become a regular thing with us," she muttered. She then noticed that Jericho was watching them with a small and amused smile on his face. She glared at him as best she could and, through the glare, silently saying to him, "You'd better not tell anyone about this, got it?"

Jericho simply smiled and nodded his head, lifting up his hand and zipping his lips to emphasize just how much he was willing to comply with Jinx's demand. Sometimes being mute had its advantages.

* * *

Author's Note: Hold onto hope. It's definitely worth something. On a less serious note, these three make a nice team personality-wise, don't they? Their dynamic is surprisingly easy and natural to write. It's what made writing this piece that much more enjoyable and fun. I hope you liked it as much as I liked writing it!


End file.
